Nearly 1 Million Texans Sign Up Under Affordable Care Act

Federal and local officials announced Wednesday that 969,461 people in Texas have signed up so far for insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

The enrollment effort already exceeds last year’s statewide enrollment by nearly a third. And a major sign-up push is underway as the Feb. 15 deadline looms.

“This is the second year, and I think we’ve surpassed the numbers that were expected,” said Marjorie Petty, Texas regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

For the first time, the sign-up effort was broken down by metropolitan areas. The Dallas-Fort Worth area had the most enrollees in Texas, 277,015, according to HHS. Next were the Houston area with 256,982 and San Antonio with 89,821.

Nationally, 9.9 million consumers have signed up for insurance or were automatically re-enrolled through the federal website or state-run marketplaces, the government said.

Automatic re-enrollment means the insured person or family bought coverage in 2014 but did not select a new plan for this year, Petty said. As of Jan. 16, the Texas total included a large percentage of first-time enrollees. Of the total, 56 percent re-enrolled from last year and 44 percent were new.